We recently switched over to Shopify, and due to poor Wi-Fi in some of our stores, we planned to use Ethernet for our iPads via the Shopify Connection Hub. After a lot of trial and error, I figured out that the Ethernet adapter needs to be connected in a specific order for it to work. However, even when it does connect, the iPads will eventually drop the connection—sometimes after a few hours if we’re lucky. The only fix so far has been a full restart of the iPad, which is not a practical solution for our store operations.
I’ve already tried all the basic troubleshooting steps, but nothing seems to resolve the issue permanently. The iPads are in Guided Access mode, and I suspect this may be a factor, but I can’t find a clear answer.
I reached out to Apple Senior Support, and they told me that iPads are designed to be portable and are not really meant for Ethernet? However, when I asked for a list of compatible models, they couldn’t provide one. Some people have suggested using an official Apple adapter, but my iPads are set up with the Shopify stand, which uses a USB-A Ethernet adapter—and Apple no longer makes these.
I also tested this issue on my MacBook Pro, and it was happening there too until I changed IPv6 settings to “Link-Local Only” and disabled power-saving features. I got this tip from Chat GPT. However, Apple Support told me that this solution can’t be applied on iPads.
I’m now wondering:
Has anyone successfully run iPads over Ethernet long-term without connection drops?
Are there any settings (either on iPads or network-side) that could help keep the connection stable?
Do large retailers using iPads as kiosks rely solely on Wi-Fi, or is there a known Ethernet setup that works?
Would really appreciate any insights! Thanks in advance.
I’m in a similar-ish situation to yourself, we have 5 retail locations, with roughly 20 iPads across them, all are connected via ethernet due to us needing to provide a stable connection as our WiFi can become problematic as we regularly invite around 30,000 people onto the site.
Although even when in IT spheres an ethernet connection may seem stable, it seems anything but on an iPad. We’ve tried the Apple Lightning Camera Connection kit, then using the USB-A port to connect an Ethernet adapter (due to the lack of an Apple lightning to ethernet adapter), this was always problematic. We then migrated to USB-C iPads & have tried a multitude of adapters (Anker/UGreen/Shopify), all of which never resolved this ‘dropping connection’ issue.
Now our devices are managed within Microsoft Intune, within there I’ve pushed a profile to ‘Allow USB accessories while device is locked’, this has improved performance a little, but I wouldn’t say that it’s fixed it.
Unfortunately with Shopify, were we to go down the route of using WiFi for each till, as we have a printer at each checkout & the management of printers when all devices are on one network is terrible, in the early days we had receipts coming out all over the place, so we had to create a VLAN (sectioned off network) for each till, just to ensure that each iPad is only able to see it’s printer & only use that printer. In short, this would mean that I’d then also have to create 20 SSID’s for each till, so WiFi isn’t ideal in that regard either, then on a matchday also being problematic due to so many people being in one place you’ll have performance issues to contend with also.
Personally for us, I think the only solution is an alternate POS solution. But if someone else has any advice on the iPad/Ethernet setup, I shall also be all ears as well.
We had similar issues and we just started using POS hub from Shopify. No issues so far but we had to buy new hardware like receipt printer and barcode scanner. II will also follow this thread incase someone has better solution which can make our existing hardware work reliably.
If so, this looks like a newer version of the Shopify Hub. I previously tried the older one called the “Shopify Connection Hub” in multiple setups, and unfortunately couldn’t get it working reliably at all. We actually have around 4 of those units across the company that ended up being unusable. I’m assuming we’re not alone, as Shopify no longer seems to sell that version. I’ll try to attach an image of the model I’m referring to for clarity.
At this point, we’ve essentially given up on trying to run Ethernet through the iPads. Instead, we focused on improving WiFi across our stores. That said, in some locations the available internet infrastructure is limited, so there’s only so much we can do. It becomes a real operational headache when connections drop and we have to keep signing staff back into POS remotely throughout the day.
From a reliability standpoint, this is where Shopify POS still feels behind. A more stable, first-party hardware solution like what Square offers would honestly be a game changer for retail environments like ours.
Would be really interested to hear if anyone has had consistent success with the newer POS Hub, or if this is still an ongoing limitation.
